Net-metering customers settle with their utility once a year, and that one bill catches thousands of solar owners off guard.
If you're on net metering, your monthly bills all year are largely provisional. Once a year, your utility runs the real math, everything you pulled from the grid minus everything you exported, and sends the true-up: one annual settlement that can range from a small credit to a four-figure surprise.
Because the monthly statements feel like the whole story, and because usage drifts: a new EV, a hotter summer, a pool pump, aging panels producing a little less each year. None of it shows up as pain until the annual settlement lands.
The inputs are knowable all year: your production is measured, your consumption is measured, and your rate plan is published. Anyone watching both curves can forecast the true-up months ahead, which is exactly what we do for SolCare members. You get a heads-up before the bill exists, with time to adjust: shift usage, revisit your rate plan, or size a battery.
Solar households are frequently on the wrong utility rate plan entirely, the plan that was optimal at install isn't always optimal three years later. An annual rate-plan review often saves more than a SolCare subscription costs. It's included in every plan we offer, because it's the cheapest money in solar.